Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Wireless communication devices (WCDs), such as cellular phones and tablets have become increasingly popular in recent years. In general, a WCD may be capable of placing a call or accessing the Internet from any place inside a coverage area of a wireless communication network.
A typical wireless communication network includes a number of base stations that radiate to define coverage areas, such as cells and cell sectors, in which WCDs can operate. In turn, each base station may be coupled with a network infrastructure that provides connectivity with one or more transport networks, such as the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and/or the Internet for instance. With this arrangement, a WCD within coverage of the network may engage in air interface communication with a base station and may thereby communicate via the base station with various remote network entities or with other WCDs served by the base station. The combination of network entities that provides a connection between the WCD and the transport network may be considered a radio access network (RAN).
In general, the base station may include an antenna tower and associated radio equipment for engaging in wireless communication with a WCD over an air interface. To facilitate such communication, the base station may assign an air interface traffic channel resource (e.g., a dedicated traffic channel or a radio link identifier) to the WCD, thereby establishing a “radio link” with the WCD. In operation, the base station dynamically assigns traffic channel resources, and therefore dynamically establishes radio links, on an as-needed basis.